One of the great things about travelling is the opportunity to run races in interesting new places! You never quite know what to expect! This weekend I ran the 8th Kokyo marathon in Tokyo Japan. Before you are too impressed, I should explain that in Japan the term marathon is used to refer to any race of any distance. My Kokyo marathon was 21.1 km so it was in fact a half marathon. The race instructions said the start was at a specific subway station and exit number. It was about 18 degrees and raining. There was no mention of bag check, so I stopped at Tokyo Station to leave a backpack with dry clothes in a locker. Unfortunately I underestimated the time to get lost in Tokyo station and re
This was the first year for the Marathon du P’tit Train du Nord. They had a marathon and a half marathon distance both of which had relatively small field caps, 1200 for the marathon and 800 for the half. The races sold out very quickly. Both races are run completely on the P’tit train du Nord, a multi-use stone dust/paved trail which was once a railway line. The trail is very similar to the rail trail which runs from Ottawa out to Carleton Place, generally straight with no really steep inclines or declines because it was built for trains. Both races finished at the old train station in Saint Jerome. Over 20 runners from K2J Fitness headed to Saint Jerome for the event. Race kit pick-up was
This was our return trip to the Peak 2 Brew Relay. The six of us in our van had previously run this in 2016 as well (with an additional member – Anita – who had decided not to participate this time). The race itself is a 220+ mile relay from the top of Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid (The ‘Peak’) to the Saranac Brewery in Utica (Where they kept all the ‘Brew’). As a variation on last year, the vans had switched roles. (Van #2 was now Van #1 and vice versa). This meant that all of us in Van #2 would be running new, unfamiliar sections of the course. One other change was that due to modifications to the course, van #2 runners would have only 3 legs to run instead of 4, although the overall d
When I turned sixty-five I qualified for the Boston Marathon. That was also the year I retired from teaching at St Thomas University and was invited to teach for a few months at the University of Wenzhou in southern China. Training over there was an interesting experience! Running on the roads or sidewalks was usually out of the question. Maybe because of population density the polite distance between two Chinese in that city was about five inches. Leaving a gap bigger than that in a line up was seen as an invitation to move in. So I had to find some off road running areas. For a short run before classes I used the basketball courts outside our residence. Unfortunately this often coincided w
